"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved."
I think this applies here. Freedom of speech is the right above all rights and limits to that right need to be extremely precise and generally agreed upon.
The western world is drunk on politics. Concepts of racism, harassment, violence, fascism and the like are creeping into inappropriate territories. This is not a time to start making decisions about what people are or aren't allowed to say.
Then Twitter has the right to choose who's speech they want to amplify.
"Concepts of racism, harassment, violence, fascism and the like are creeping into inappropriate territories. This is not a time to start making decisions about what people are or aren't allowed to say."
On the contrary, this move by Twitter is a step toward fending off some of those concepts.
I don't think I (or my parent comment) were trying to defend free speech. For context, I'm not American, and I'm a supporter of UK-style online hate speech crackdown laws.
I commended them for pointing out the lie behind "guy got sued for posting a dog gif", and adding context behind it. The discussion was not "posting nazi videos is hateful, but allowed because free speech"
Yes, I'll fall over myself to defend the right of someone to post a Nazi-themed dog image. Free speech means the freedom to offend. It even means the freedom to hate. Censorship solves nothing, and it's far too tempting a power to be given to the self-righteous.
Fall over yourself all you want to defend free speech, much respect to you. My parent debunked the specific lie that UK police stretched a law to fine a man for uploading a gif of his dog, and that is what I was applauding. Predictably, the replies ignore the lies and rant about free speech.
What else will you fall over for the right of people to post? Does this include the freedom to post without recieving a targeted harassment campaign, doxing, etc, or are you only concerned with government action?
Free speech wouldn't need to be a right in the US constitution if it only applied to stuff that wasn't offensive to someone.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"